Almost 2 billion rubles to be spent on measures to combat HIV infection in Moscow

In the next three years, 1.81 billion rubles /$1 buys approximately 30 rubles/ will be allocated from the budget to combat HIV in Moscow, with the bulk of the funds intended for spending on drugs to treat the disease, leaving only 10% for prophylactic measures.

A sum of 28,000 rubles a month is needed to treat one HIV-infected patient, and more than 40,000 rubles a month are spent on an AIDS patient, Andrei Seltsovsky, the chief of Moscow's Healthcare Department, told a Moscow government session on Tuesday.

In the meantime, according to Moscow's Chief Sanitary Inspector Nikolai Filatov, the city numbers 22,000 HIV-infected people, which is 33% more than the country's average figure. Out of 100,000 Muscovites, 216.7 are HIV-infected, the majority of them being young people aged between 20 and 30, he said.

The program envisages that apart from HIV treatment, there will be 34 actions to prevent the disease. These include medical checks among the risk groups, tightening of sanitary control over donor blood, law enforcement actions to combat prostitution and drug addiction, and creation of special HIV-prophylaxis centers in each of the capital's administrative districts.